Norwich City 1-1 BFC, Saturday 18th November 2017

‘If you want a jelly baby, just ask, you don't have to kill me!'

Welcome to...while the teams line up.

80 years of hurt, never stopped us trying.  When will we ever win at Carrow Road?  Even when we dominate, we can’t get past the line, but I s’pose we must be grateful that we came back for a point, after a completely fortuitous completely against the run of play opener for the Canaries.  

All that was to come tho, as the ‘Banter bus’ left Peckham at 10 in the morn for a sojourn to the far east.  Not owning a car, I always get a tingle of excitement when I get chance to drive. Maybe it’s the thought of Selwood and Reedy’s life chances being at my disposal, I dunno.  However, by 9:45am the novelty had run out, as I’d gone the wrong way down the road from New Cross and found myself going the opposite direction to intended.  F***ing London.  I wouldn’t mind, but I’d been down said road dozens of times on my bike, but you find yourself in the wrong lane in a car and that’s it.  I arrived at Peckham Rye station dead on time tho, only to find Andy wouldn’t be arriving, his trains were up the spout and he’d see me at Blackfriars with Dave.  F***ing London. F***ing trains.

Only in Norwich.

The drive wasn’t too bad.  I don’t think those in the back saw I’d reached 115mph before I decided to ease back on the accelerator.  But I owed it to them: the quicker I got there, the quicker I could watch them drink.  We arrived, parked up in the County Hall car park (8 quid!) before Andy took us to a vegan pub he’d looked up last year.  Closed.  Great.  Walking towards town, we hit the stadium first.  To hell with it; let’s go Wetherspoons.  (Even then we had to be under cover: ‘No away fans’ though it didn’t stop them serving everything in plastic glasses. Never again.)

Pre-match parking.

I was very optimistic, despite the lack of victory in 17 previous outings (7 draws). This was why I was asking about our records at Norwich and QPR (the latter, 3 draws and 21 defeats in 24).  I’d seen on the Championship last week that there’s a team with an even worse away record than ourselves.  QPR (ironically) haven’t won at Forest in 29 games, the 1^st side ever to ‘achieve’ no victory in so many games away at the same opposition, I’m told.

Two of us enjoy a pint.

The optimism seemed founded too.  We ran the 1^st 10 minutes and they couldn’t get out of their half. Yiadom was rampaging down the right and we had Barnes on the left.  We looked slick going forward and we’d quietened the home crowd.  So naturally they scored with their first attack.  Fryers switched off, Lindsay failed miserably on the cover and no-one picked up the runner for the pullback.  OK, so they got jammy with the deflection off MacDonald, but it was appalling all round.  The Canaries finally made some noise.  ‘You only sing when you’re winning’ came the retort.  We continued to have the upper hand, but only had a Hammill snapshot from 20 yards to show for our efforts, Manchester City’s Angus Gunn tipping over.

The view from Carrow Road (till we moved).

I timed my half time p*** well.  Too late to inhale the smoke, early enough to return for what might be our goal of the season.  A lightning-fast break from our half and zippy passes meant we had a man on the overlap.  Moncur duly laid the ball off to Barnes and Leicester City equalised, calmly sidefooting home.  (Meantime, it actually was Leicester v Man City at the King Power.)  My pre-match prediction of 2-1 to the Super Reds didn’t look so daft now.

The home end and their revolving scoreboard.

Unfortunately, our plans were scuppered slightly by MacDonald having to go off injured, hurting himself clattering into a tackle that did well not to break the other bloke.  Angus (our Angus; has there ever been a match outside of Scotland with two Anguses?  Angusi?) had put in a brilliant block a few minutes earlier too.  A cracking return to form.  McCarthy came on and had a decent turn at centre half too.  He’s great.

Sunset over Carrow Road.

Hammill tired and Hecky brought on Hedges..and he was our big disappointment for me.  3 or 4 times he had time and space on the right, 3 or 4 times he cut inside onto his only foot and was tackled.  The fullback had him in his pocket.  Couldn’t he switch wings for a bit?  The fullback showed him to his outside, where Hedges would have had plenty of time to put in a cross with his righ…oh yeah, he doesn’t HAVE a right foot.  Otherwise, neither side really threatened and the Canaries showed what they thought of their team, booing them off.  To be fair to the home support, they didn’t get on the players backs during the game, though it was the most non-existent atmosphere in the home end I’ve ever seen.  And they must have been bad – they gave Marley a late trot out (but refused to give him the ball).  He should never have left us.

The players give thanks.

*** MacDonald.  At his imperious best. For 57 minutes.  

** Williams.  Broke down the Canary midfield.

* Barnes.  Always likely.

Londontykes' MOTM: 1. Williams  2. Barnes  3= MacDonald/Lindsay

Despatches:
What is it with away stewards, insisting on away fans sitting down while 3000 home fans can stand up all day behind the goal?  Still, we moved ourselves and had the seats above the gangway.  Perfect.  

Shouldn’t grumble too much about the players.  Essentially, we were great when we played it to feet, less so when we didn’t.  I heard someone say Lindsay had a good game, but for me, all he did was f*** up for their goal and ping balls to Bradshaw’s head.  Nevermind the 3 on 2 break where he passed the ball straight to one of their defenders.  I guess he was lost, being that far up the pitch.  Hammill wasted a great opportunity to lay the ball off to someone better placed, but otherwise never lost the ball. What he lacks in pace, he makes up for in intelligence.  Course, we now have Barnes for the cutting edge.  Davies was perfect – but who wouldn’t be, when you’ve little to do?  Yiadom faded after a promising start, while Fryers was blatantly under instruction not to venture too far up the pitch, which was a real shame.  I think we missed a trick here, Norwich were there for the beating, no need to be so conservative.  I can’t say I noticed Potts while it was a shame the half chances we created didn’t fall to Bradshaw.  Or maybe it wasn’t.  I’ve bets to win.  Moncur looked tidy, but was generally crowded out on the edge of the box.

You can't argue with stats.

Drink du jour: lemonade and latte.  Not together, am driving.  Later, a mini-Peckham pub crawl with Andy: The Hope, then a dodgy pub we never went in ‘I’m not going in there!’, The Prince of Peckham (suitably poncy), John The Unicorn (hipster central) and Peckham Springs, where the females were noticeably chubbier, according to my companion.

Onwards and upwards!

Away: 6-700. Decent atmosphere at times.  1^st time I’ve heard us outsing Norwich at their place. 

The Damage:
£25 ent
£3.50 prog
£8 car park

The Tunes:
BBC 6 Music

Norwich v Barnsley panorama.

Heading towards Mecca.

Is it a bird?  Is it...Yes, it's a bird.  A canary.

Hi Sarah!  (somewhere in the far upper tier)